Friction between the bosses of Indian cricket comes to the fore after league’s governing council takes a decision to retender the bids and revise clauses.
Has the Board of Control for Cricket in India overruled the Indian Premier League?
There are not many in the BCCI willing to come on record on this question, but one official admitted that he would not object if the Sunday’s decision to scrap the auction process is interpreted that way.
Another official said in the face of it, it appeared so. “It has been proved on Sunday that who is the boss. A strong message has been sent out,” said a Board official, unwilling to be named.
The message, obviously, has been sent to IPL chairman Lalit Modi, who is known to have his adversaries in the BCCI. His differences with Board secretary N Srinivasan are well documented. And it could be more than just a coincidence that the whole auction process has been shifted to Chennai.
One of the obvious questions about the decision was how the contentious clauses were not known to the members of the governing council. The clauses of the document were out in the open and so were reactions of some bidders, who have been issuing statements over the ‘unfair’ clauses.
“It was the right decision. Quite a few parties have objected to the clauses,” said a top Board official. “The process has to be fair and more important than that it has to appear to be fair. There were quite a few objections. If there were a few more than two bids, the process would not have been scrapped.”
Another factor could be the objection from Sahara, which has been sponsoring the Indian team for a long time. Sahara is believed to have written a strong letter to BCCI president Shashank Manohar.
Modi, after addressing the press conference, was not available for the media while Srinivasan refused to pass any comment on Sunday’s decision. But it could be interesting to see if the power struggle in the BCCI will surface again.
Saif, Kareena show interest
The surprise visitors to the auction venue on Sunday were Bollywood’s hot couple Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor. It was initially thought they had come to meet governing council member MAK Pataudi, the father of Saif, but it later came to light that they had actually come for the auction.
They are part of the Videocon-headed Pune consortium, which was one of the favourites, to bag a team. Venugopal Dhoot, the chairman of the consortium, later declared that the two stars had come for the auction. “Along with Karishma, they are part of our team,” the Videocon boss said.
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